Spare Me Your Woes
by StellarStorm
Summary: The cost of the Oaths of the Sons of Fëanor in the end was dear, but they had brought it upon themselves.


The undisturbed calmness of the sky and the placid shades of night turned to leaden tones, contrasting with the silver stars that dotted the darkness above. Ithil showed its smooth face, unaware and uninterested of the world below.

He did not feel anything, except the intermittent pain, burning, searing, tearing the flesh of his hand apart. Maedhros ran, but he did not quite feel his heavy legs, as he held the precious jewel which was his blessing and his ruin, the gem that had seen kingdoms rise and fall.

How could such a beautiful thing cause him so much pain? The Silmaril held the radiant light and ethereal splendor of Valinor itself, its sacred brightness a balm to his eyes yet a burden to his body and soul.

Yet pain it did cause him, but he could not let it go. Maedhros had given everything for it, his home, his freedom... everything. His mind was frantic, as he tried, in vain, to assess his scrambled thoughts, to make reason of it all in his shattered heart, but found his spirit drifting further and further away into the chasms of madness.

An Oath he had swore; But the words seemed empty as they resounded on his mind, echoes of a past and faces of those who, like him, had sacrificed everything to fulfill it; His father, his brothers, everything they had, everything they were, their very lives had they given to this task.

Was it not fair that he should have some compensation? After all the pain, after all the deaths, after all the tears?

But no, it was not right. He did not deserve anything, not after all the countless elves that met their deaths beneath the steel of his blade, and he remembered the blood of their lives dripping to the ground in intricate patterns of crimson red. Maedhros did not know if he was a hero, a villain, or merely a victim. But that was not for him to judge.

He wondered, not for the first time, if it had been worth it, all they had been through, for a gem that now burned the skin of his only remaining hand. Were all this pain worth a single Silmaril? Was that what his pride had wrought? Was his Oath but a folly that would lead him to destruction?

The echoes of cries of the Elven kin he had murdered were forgotten in the black depths of his poisoned mind, as his heavy legs led him to the edge of the abyss; Maedhros did not know where he was, but he did not care. He cast his bleak eyes down, staring at the now charred and wrecked flesh of his hand, with the otherworldly beauty of the Silmaril enfolded within his trembling fingers, and searing pain flowed through his body once again.

Am I a traitor or a fool?, he wondered.

Still he held it, and brought it close to his chest, tightening his grasp as if he were holding on to life itself. He would not let it go, no, not after all he had done to get it, but he also could not bear it anymore. If the gem was his doom and death, so it shall be.

He smiled, painfully, wickedly. The darkness of the chasm was as deep as nothingness amidst the flames. Maedhros gazed at the deep shadows cast by the fire in the abyss, and jumped, and he did not have time to scream as the flames engulfed him; But he was not afraid.

* * *

Jerking his head towards the infinite immensity of the sky, always so vast and unreachable, he drew a deep breath. Wistful eyes watched the horizon under half-lowered eyelids, idle and empty.

He had thought his brother would be behind him, or even following close, but he could not see Maedhros anywhere. Perchance he had ran in a different direction, lest anyone be after them, but it did not seem important. Maglor walked vacantly without conscience of where his feet led him until he heard far in the distance the sounds of the ocean.

The noise of the sea resonated through the clouds painted with darkness as birds soared on the bleak horizon. The imperturbable roaring of the ocean raged on and on as tidal waves turned its course towards the grey shores that echoed the sad songs the ocean sang. The now faded white light of the stars was substituted by the weak sun that bathed the land on its dim light at the eastern horizon.

With the Silmaril now in his hands, Maglor tried to ignore the endless pain and searing heat that the jewel cast upon his skin, and closing his eyes tight, he knew, as if it were written on the walls of existence, that it was a fool's reward. They had brought it upon themselves.

The dire mistakes of his past could not be undone, the utter failure he accomplished while lost on his grand plans of life and death; He could not be this weak, could he? What had he endured all those centuries for, of disaster and disgrace, just to fail in the end? What would he still endure toward the infinity of endless ages of his immortal life?

Despite all the eternity he had ahead to live, Maglor felt he was a ghost, as if he had been dead already, if any of the Eldar could ever know completely what death was.

Long had he dreamt of that moment, but now that it came, it felt bitter on his mouth as sour thoughts of ruin and war invaded his mind. All that had been wrought upon his kin, for a mere jewel - even if such was blessed with the Light of Valinor - that now refused to be touched by his hands as if it had a will of its own, did not feel like victory.

He remembered all the lives he had taken for this accursed stone that now only brought pain to his spirit and to his weak body, and knew that he could not do it anymore.

"Forgive me, Adar," he murmured softly and his voice was raw and cracked. "I cannot."

Maglor breathed deeply and jerked his hand backwards, gathering the impulse to throw the shimmering gem as far away as he could into the deep sea, hoping it would never see these shores again. He watched it soar into the pale skies and his keen Elven ears heard it lay with a thump into the water, lost amidst the infinite depths of the pools of blue.

He stared once again at the empty horizon, and in despair, Maglor fell to his knees. He could feel tears running down his wan face, falling ever so slightly to the ground as he held to the last piece of sanity he had left and felt his broken heart be torn to pieces. He had been a pawn of fate, and now he would pay the price of his pride, even if all he wanted was the comfort of the tides of oblivion below.

It was too late to change aught, but mourn he would. As his deep voice intoned the lines of a song, with a calmness he did not feel and with a strength he feared he would never have again, Maglor closed his eyes that still held a flicker of light, although dim, and let the music become one with the calm noise of the sea. It would not soothe his troubled heart, but it voiced his woes into the void.


End file.
